II
How Will Healing Come?
1.
The Mainspring of Expression
The mainspring of a clock empowers the pendulum. The mainspring can be seen as the “need for expression” driving relentlessly forward from the depth of the heart. The mainspring of a clock forces itself upon the clock's gearing that in turn drives the pendulum. The swing of the pendulum marks the healthy pace of time. As the mainspring of a clock drives the pendulum, the pendulum's swing is measured by the click of a fulcrum.
In a like manner, the mainspring of expression drives both the pendulums of pain and of hope, allowing my inner gears of emotional force to release the pressure inside. The pendulums of pain and of hope swing. As pressure is healthily released, growth occurs. When the gearing stops, growth stops: I get angry or doubt myself.
Though there be many credible views on what drives the human soul, I only speak of my grief. In my grief, the above picture and the following developments helped me. Not just a meager understanding, but the attempt to express helped me and calmed my heart.
Better than that, as I traveled along, I began to notice that this was not just my chronicle. This chronicle reflected all of the other persons in my life who had gone through a divorce or death. This chronicle reflected how I had empathized or had not empathized in the past. I found myself expressing my own grief and growth, true enough; but as "no man is an island," I also found myself expressing the grief and growth of others throughout my past recollections.
In all of life, as in my life's profession of dealing with people in crisis, I have not seen anyone‑‑not a single person‑‑who did not have a need for self-expression, especially in great pain. We all have a inner need for self-expression.
In order for the pendulum of hope to eclipse the pendulum of pain‑‑there is no exception here‑‑the mainspring of expression must click, and it must click soon and click continually. Said in another way, without the mainspring of expression's click, the pendulum of pain will most certainly freeze up; the pendulum of hope will never begin its swing, much less eclipse the pendulum of pain.
A healthy mainspring or healthy emotional life will force two kinds of expression. I represent the two kinds of expression by a lever on a fulcrum. As the lever moves down, the gearing clicks forward, and pressure from the mainspring is released. Each time the lever moves on the fulcrum, one of two sides of expression is released‑‑click, clock. One side is outward expression to another human being, and the other side is an inner expression and reflection in solitude‑‑click, clock. Each side in turn‑‑the inner then the outer expression‑‑both together allow the gearing of growth to turn forward and release the tension from the mainspring of crisis. Expression upon expression‑‑both inner and outer expression are the means through which grief and growth, learning and resolution occur.
Fig. 1: The Healing Clockwork
As the force of the mainspring drives the fulcrum of expression, inner and outer expression--expression upon expression, the pendulum of pain swings to and fro in the crisis. Click, clock. As long as the mainspring of expression releases its energy through the gearing, and the fulcrum allows the lever to swing, the pendulum of pain will swing and not get stuck. With expression upon expression, inward and outward, beginning early, the pendulum of hope will soon start its swing and approach a tandem swing with the pendulum of pain.
Not long after, hope will begin to eclipse pain.
That is, expression‑‑both inward and outward‑‑is the key to healing.
To understand whether or not I am progressing, I need to do an honest self-appraisal. Has the pendulum of pain gotten stuck in angry bitterness or in self-debasing inadequacy?
Of course, this is a simple picture, and we go in another direction later in the book. The pendulums serve only to get us started and to show the need for expression in general. The swing of pendulums indicate the expression needed to release the pressure of the mainspring, and therefore illustrate the mechanism of growth and the need for inner and outer expression. The pendulums are also examples of how we get stuck: that is, when they stop, when we stop the expression before the pressure is fully released from the mainspring. The point is that some kind of healing or resolution will only come through the expression of the pain‑‑inward and outward expression.
What is common is this: grief is pain, a very painful pressure upon the heart and soul. Just as common and natural is the need for expression of this pain. The problem for every individual‑‑you and me‑‑is this: How do we express ourselves? Notice, not "if we express," but "how we express" ourselves. For everyone of us will express ourselves somehow and in some way.
The question is not "if?" or even so much "when?" The question is "how?" we will express our grief and pain. How to release the energy wound up in the mainspring of our soul? How to facilitate the pendulum of pain and keep it swinging until the pendulum of hope swings wide enough to eclipse the pain?[1]
By and large, this writing was part of my expression and part of how the beast, Pain, worked itself out of my innards. So much was left unsaid.
As the fulcrum allows the lever to swing, emotional energy from the mainspring is released. Click, clock.
Inward Expression
results in greater Self-Discovery,
&
Outward Expression results in greater Social
Sensitivity.
This "click, clock" of expression is the way that healing and growth will come. As the mainspring forces the fulcrum and lever to click the gearing forward, a higher level of loving results.
2.
My Expression
In the following I attempted to outwardly express some of my inner struggle. That attempt at expression was a chronicle of my tortuous journey of grief, a journey that was compounded by my past.
Because of her‑‑I am, am becoming, and will become a better person. But not just her, all of the other persons and other losses of my past inform me on my journey. Likewise, what I have learned and have been entrusted about the losses experienced by others also inform my on my journey. I am thankful for the encounter with such a beautiful woman. For the growth. If you receive some comfort and grow through the following . . . well, may God be with you.
The struggle it took to chronicle . . . how can I say . . . was intense and immense. At times, writing came like searching in the fog. Occasionally a gusher would spring forth, and writing was hard to stop. Sometimes I fought with the beast and was left for dead.
At times, it seemed that pendulums froze and it got very cold.
At other times, there seemed to be some nonsense and futility to it all, like a novice putting together a poor quality cartoon. Laughable or insane. Several sections were edited or rewritten dozens of times.
Then again a sheer and cold fear blocked the passage of thought. What if everything is repulsed? What if . . . the failure, rejection? Worse still, the miscommunication and doubt? Dare I share any of this?
Would someone laugh at my pictures? My scribblings of pain? Would some people be confused and cause me to doubt myself further? Would anyone at all bother to read this? And if they did, would they trash it afterwards? Why go to the trouble at all? Maybe I should just lay down and sleep it off.
Oh . . . how the feelings churned.
This was my journey. How inadequate the writing seems. Too small and insubstantial. How complicated are love, death, divorce, and grief. Truly the poets and song writers know, for they have told us that one can write forever about the loss of an earthly love. So have the musicians, authors and other artists.
"Forever" does not seem to contain the time necessary for expression. There seems to be a tragic and confusing truth about great loss. Until an adequate amount of expression is released‑‑is said, written, screamed, scratched, painted, sculpted, sewn, or sung . . . whatever‑‑there will be no relief.
The tragic truth is: until an adequate amount of expression is released from within, no freedom from the pain of grief will come. When enough expression has been released, pain will ease and hope will emerge.
Through it all, the best expression can never be adequately released in solitude. Expression is not complete until it is expressed to another. Some of the best expression is accomplished with a close friend. But everyone does not have someone they can trust with their innermost self, that vulnerable area of the BrokenHeart. For the most healthy, the arts have become the avenue of expression; for the less healthy, war and destruction become the avenue.
How complicated and circular this becomes. How can any outward expression‑‑in words or art (or war)‑‑adequately express the changing nature of the inner soul? From the exact moment of expression the soul changes, and the previous expression becomes obsolete. There even comes a time, I believe, when the ramblings themselves about the efficacy of expression become silly and self-defeating.
3.
Caution About Expression
When the mainspring of expression pushes the fulcrum and lever too far, there is a tendency for the lever to get stuck in the gearing. Click, jam. This halts all movement and stops all expression. Growth ceases.
Be forewarned‑‑an obsession with self-expression is as unhealthy as a complete denial of self-expression. Endless tears and bitter self-pitying grief are as unhealthy as a stoic and resolute rejection of grief. One such person lives in the wound and refuses healing. The other refuses the wound's significance altogether and moves into an ugly indifference. Both persons become impaired.
Click, jam.
More often than not, a prior tragedy caused one of these extreme reactions: endless self-pitying or stoic denial. A prior tragedy usually caused the extremes. That tragedy being,
the hurting person in either
extreme had no outside
person who understood or accepted
them.
The hurting person had no one they could trust, talk to‑‑express to. No one walked with them as Jesus might have, accepting all of them with all of their mixed up emotions throughout the ordeal.
No matter where you are. No matter who you are. Some kind of healing is available. Sometimes a truly helpful person will be found in the most unlikely of places.
Of the many persons I leaned on, one unusual person stood out. One of the jobs I held, we gathered together before work at 4:00 A.M. One man waited in his car, and he was usually hung over or had had a little to drink. Yet he would always listen. He never judged me or ridiculed me or my ex-wife. He simply had kind words of reflection without any profound words of advice. In fact, he never said much of anything, and I felt that he never repeated anything.
When I had been wrestling with the beast, Pain, I made a point to sit with him in his car a few of the six mornings a week that we met before work. Sometimes the job was delayed for thirty minutes. I yakked about this and that. I reflected my feelings of hurt, rejection, anger, fear, and humiliation. I felt free to yak and yak. Apparently he did not mind. On those days, after I had released something of my burden in what I perceived was a confidential and caring situation, I went on to work feeling encouraged and empowered.
Seems to me, he never knew the "click, clock" he helped me express.
To my own failure, I cannot remember the man's name. I do remember that he was a Christian (I think?). He acted more like one than many I have known.
The lesson I carry with me to this day is that anyone can care and provide comfort is they are just willing to listen. All the better if that person can communicate and reflect and resonate with my emotions. Everyone needs a listening and nonjudgmental ear.
For with the listening, I felt that someone understood, and so I was no longer alone. With the feeling of being understood and no longer being alone, courage gathered in my heart. Hope sprang forth. As hard as it was, I felt like I could now make it one more day.
Click, clock.
No matter where you are. No matter who you are. Some kind of healing is available. Sometimes a truly helpful person will be in the most unlikely of places. But know that there is someone who will listen, though probably hard to find.
Would that that person could always be your pastor, elder or deacon in the church you hold membership. Maybe not. Nevertheless, somewhere there is some one who will allow you your expression without judgment or denigration or laughter. And God is willing, for God is love.
4.
The Length of Healing
Severe and tragic, an amputation requires lengthy healing and competent therapy for a suitable adaptation. One would not expect to recuperate quickly from the amputation of a leg or an arm.
A medical doctor friend of mine told me that many variables existed in the treatment and healing of an amputation. In the amputation of a leg, generally, healing took six weeks for a twenty-one year old, seven weeks for a thirty-one year old, and eight weeks for a forty-one year old.
Some of the variables involved in healing were what caused the amputation itself. If the amputation was necessary because of trauma, like in an accident of some sort, healing might be protracted for a longer time depending upon the condition of the patient. If the amputation could be scheduled, including the plan of a skin graft or flap of skin and antibiotic treatment, then healing could be facilitated according to a somewhat predictable schedule.
After healing, the adaptation to a prosthesis took several more weeks. Some of the variable included just how strong and healthy the patient was prior to the amputation. Other variables included the patient him or herself and just how much the person wanted to make the transition to a prosthesis. Ironically enough, the doctor said that people would surprise you. Sometimes the person you thought was strong would not do well in therapy and vice versa.
This is not gruesome to those in the medical profession, and the procedure is a lot more standardized today than a century ago. In comparing the trauma of an amputation to divorce, many of the same variables occur. There are differences.
Comparing amputation and divorce underscores the greater depth of pain in divorce. For a couple in love, divorce is a physical and emotional loss so much more painful and complicated than a loss through amputation.
In an absurd application of the analogy, I know many persons who, in order to restore a shattered love (if such an absurdity were possible) would willingly give a leg or an arm in amputation. In a similar and reverse application of the analogy, of those who are in love and in a quality marriage, I do not know anyone who would opt for a divorce if the divorce would prevent an amputation. None. Those in possession of a good marriage would sacrifice leg or arm, even their life to save the loved one.
Love has the quality of esteeming another above self and very much more above a single limb that is only a remote part of the self. In this comparison, the severe and painful and protracted tragedy of an amputation becomes a small loss side-by-side with divorce. That is, when love is present.
The physical healing and adaptation in an amputation take a long time and much work. Though a huge and painful loss, amputation is a rather common and elemental procedure, compared to brain or heart surgery. A lengthy healing and adaptation are natural and rather predictable. How much more time and healing and adaptation are needed in a divorce between two former lovers? Unlike amputation, predictability is impossible, as the persons and situation and support systems are all unique.
In our modern world and advanced state of religion, it seems so very tragic that a disproportionate amount of time and care is given to the common and elemental procedure of amputation. How ironic it is to see the church‑‑represented in many members‑‑marry a couple in love; then scarcely recognize, much less succor, the pain of a divorce.
Given that most human beings claim as a universal duty the care of body and soul and that the greatest pain ought to be given the best care, so much more could be said of the ironies. In an amputation, you have a doctor with a Hippocratic oath; in divorce, you have hungry lawyers, some of whom have no human feeling outside the interest of their client. In amputation a large hospital staff exists to aid in any complications; whereas in divorce, there is little support beyond a pat on the back. In amputation there are antibiotics, in divorce there is scarcely a vacant bed. In amputation there are prostheses; in divorce there is usually loneliness, misunderstanding, and often abandonment.
Even more than in the comparison, a contrast of amputation and divorce forces further the greater pain of loss experienced in divorce. In the amputation, you were anesthetized, an experienced and professional doctor performed the operation, and many amputees have traveled an almost identical road. In a divorce, you must cope with and hold your own BrokenHeart and take personal responsibility in the surgery and therapy. Most unlike an amputation, in divorce no one has ever traveled the road upon which you walk. Every BrokenHeart is unique.
I am partial to my leg. Under few circumstances would I part with it, for I use it every day. The loss of my leg would pose a great inconvenience. Because of so many immature people‑‑and the children‑‑in many circles I would be an outcast, stared at, and not accepted as "normal." I would not part with my leg easily.
But a time came when I would have made a quick trade to save the love I had so formerly cherished. That is, if there was some kind of love insurance, I would have traded my leg for the restoration of love. I have no doubt. Though I am very partial to my leg, I never had and never will have a relationship with my leg like I had with my ex-wife.
How much worse is divorce than an amputation? How great was the love? How can one define the nature of mutual love? Did the love last a long time? Healing and adaptation will take a lot of time and work.
Avoid like a plague those shallow folk whose counsel makes allusions to speed or ease of recovery. Love endures.
A BrokenHeart does not look toward healing easily. Self-surgery takes courage. There is no anesthesia for this kind of surgery. Nor is there any clear guidebook‑‑your heart is unique. If you were in love, then it will take some time, require some pain, and demand some endurance‑‑there are no short cuts. The mainspring of expression must drive the fulcrum. The pendulums must swing.
5.
Formula for Healing
Despite the complication, there remains a time-worn and trusted formula for healing. This is hard to believe by those in the throes of battling the beast, Pain. But many will testify to the simple and common formula for healing:
Through expression upon expression, inward and outward, resonating with a gentle and warm person, compounded by time, still waters will emerge. And all the more wholesome through faith.
The mainspring of expression must push the lever on the fulcrum wide:
to one side, Outward Expression to another human being;
to the other side, Inner Expression and reflection in
solitude.
The pendulum of pain swings between bitterness and inadequacy. In time, the pendulum of hope will soon start its swing. Not long after, the pendulum of hope will eclipse the pendulum of pain.
The following is a token of expression. Self-expression. Mine in particular. But maybe something like yours too. Inadequate. Small. Not quite enough yet.
If you are recently broken, I might want to avoid this book, especially if you do not have someone special to go to. For the kind of self-expression exhibited in the following was never meant to be undertaken in solitude.
As you encounter the following and interpret my chronicle in the light of your unique situation and unique pain, note the temptation to settle in some kind of sorry state of emotional health. I was tempted. That is the weakness of traveling by proxy in a storybook about another person's struggle. Know that it is far better to live in one level of either self-pity or debased inadequacy than to go through the following and become further entrenched into a deeper level of one of those. There are risks to everything, but holding in and doing nothing is worse of all.
There are methods of making the "time" and "grief work" more tolerable and beneficial. Most healing will come through self-expression to some real live person in whom you have confidence. Some warm soul to lean on in the dark hours. Some happy and strong person who is willing to listen patiently and hear all sides of you. Someone who will not be shocked by anything they see. The isolation. The hunger. The jealousy. The anger. The tears. The confusion. The inadequacy. The fear.
What was it for you: _______________? This is the outward expression. The yield will be greater social sensitivity.
Outside of a warm person, a book like this can help as a kind of chronicle, unique and not quit complete, but still a chronicle of struggle similar to your own. Identifying with another on their journey will often make your journey easier and foster inner self-discovery. From another person's journey, you will see new vistas of your own pain unfold. Through understanding the journey and resolutions of others, through the of comradeship in struggle, growth will occur through the para‑adventure. This is the inward expression, yielding self-discovery.
How will healing come on the journey through the wasteland of grief? Through expression inward and outward. From the outward expression, growth will come in greater social sensitivity. From the inward expression and resolutions, growth will come in greater self-awareness. Remember that many have found resolution and adaptation. Remember that grief is not a goal or something to be sought, but more a process unique to the person. When resolution comes, past the Bridge of Finality discussed later, outward expression will yield greater social sensitivity and inward expression will yield greater inner self-discovery. Said again in another way:
Outward Expression
to another human being yields:
Social Sensitivity
Inner Expression and reflection in solitude
yields:
Self-Discovery
Looked at like this, healing adaptation looks rather easy, if one just attends to the goals of social sensitivity and self-discovery. But looks are deceiving. Unlike a medical amputation, “social sensitivity” and “self-discovery” are not very clear goals in themselves. What makes adaptation so difficult is that “sensitivity” and “discovery” are themselves well-hidden treasures only coming to the service after work, only after great individual work. And of course, like a lot of true treasure, sometimes only dynamite will break it out the of the cavern.
Though your individual journey will be solitary at times, that journey is best traveled through expression to another warm and trustworthy person as well as in your own private study.
I am scared to share the following. Please be gentle. Feel free to disagree, just don't tell me. Feel free to feel and recollect. Feel free to imagine. Most of all feel free to use the following as kind of precedent for you to chronicle how it was for you on your unique pathway through the Black Forest of grief.. Do know that I know that you will find a multitude points whereby you could have spun off your own chapter.
Like Paul, though much lower, I too have not arrived (Phil. 3:12-14). If I had not had a few persons who were willing to be to me as Jesus might have been, this token would not be before you today. How fortunate I have been. And I thank God every time I remember them (Phil. 1).